The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
As computer networks such as the Internet expand and communication capabilities broaden, online meetings and web conferences held over networks are becoming more popular. web meetings can involve attendees from all over the world. Example web meeting systems include WebEx, Microsoft Live Meeting, Citrix GoToMeeting, Raindance, Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, etc. The expansion of web conferencing has led to concerns related to data security, data access, information exchange control, etc. In particular, the security of information exchanged during web conferences concerns those who participate in web conferences.
In one approach a WebEx EMX unit could be installed on a customer premises. However, the EMX unit required setting up a private network connection between the EMX unit and the WebEx hosted network, involving significant cost, introducing security issues, and providing non-scalable complexity. The EMX unit would not be fully isolated in the customer's because of the private network connection, so that potentially users from outside the company firewall could join a meeting.